I'm brave enough to say it: I like it when a videogame looks cool. Cuphead? Banging. Holstin? What a looker. Metaphor: ReFantazio? Wowie zowie.
A sufficiently striking coat of paint can get me interested in a game before I know anything else about it. So it was with the Steam Next Fest demo for Black Raven, a "2.5D action-adventure rooted in Slavic Folklore," whose screenshots are such a vibe that I downloaded it sight-unseen.
Which, gosh, might have been a mistake, because some very unpleasant things happen to you in the first 45 seconds or so of Black Raven. Have you seen Gladiator? It's like Gladiator. Your fella, Ivan—a man made entirely of jaw—runs off into the woods thinking he's spied a friend, only to return to find his home burnt, wife murdered, and child… abducted? Probably abducted, since I don't think we see them again.
It feels a tad gratuitous—scenes of intense violence to compensate for the fact that you likely haven't developed much of a bond with Ivan's family in the 15 seconds you get with them—but I get what it's going for. This is dark, pulpy comic-book fare, regardless of all the references to Slavic mythology. The aim is to get you to the bit where Ivan gets sad and kills everyone. Bold hues in visuals and narrative, I guess.
It really does look great, though: every step and slash looks like a panel from a 1980s comic strip that only seven people read. Black Raven's demo is comically short—it took me 10 minutes with one death, and consists of a short story segment and a short combat segment to follow it, but it leaves an impression. The 2.5D lends everything a distinctive otherworldly quality that sticks with you even if there's not much else to sink your teeth into.
This is one to keep your eye on, I think. Admittedly, the vast majority of my interest comes from the artstyle alone—the brief slice of combat you get is very simplistic—but I think this thing has potential, and it'd seem daft to comprehensively judge a thing based on a demo I could play over six times in a single lunch break. I'm into what Black Raven is going for. The full release, whenever that is, might not go for it successfully, but I'm willing to give it the chance.
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